So, let’s see, we decided to sign up for Google AdSense, in order to pick up a little bit of the maintenance costs of the blog as a Cabela’s Affiliate. All good so far, right?

I filled out the information requested, and sent it off. I just received a response via email from Google that they will not be accepting us because of “Unacceptable site content”.

So follow the bouncing ball here – Google AdSense won’t advertise on sites that discuss firearms. Cabela’s is one of the largest online retailers for firearms related merchandise. Google runs their affiliate program. They have advertisements for firearms related merchandise. A blog that doesn’t discuss firearms at all, and fits within Google’s definition of “acceptable”, can show a GOOGLE AD ABOUT FIREARMS (which in my mind puts them in violation of Google’s policies…) .

They can set whatever rules they like, but doesn’t this strike anybody else as just a bit schizophrenic?

Before the Tokarev was the standard sidearm of the Soviet armed forces, there was the Nagant. The Nagant M1895 Revolver was a seven-shot revolver designed and produced by Belgian industrialist Léon Nagant (of Mosin-Nagant fame) for the Russian Empire. In addition to military use, Russian (and later Soviet) police used it.

Other Nagant revolver designs were also adopted by police and military services of Sweden (7.5 mm M1887), Norway (M1893), Poland, and Greece (M1895).

Today we examine a different flavor of East Bloc sidearm. The Czechs must have chafed at being dominated by the Soviet Union, and went with their own design when selecting a miliary sidearm, the CZ52. No other nation adopted it. The full name is “Ceskoslovenska Zborjovka Vzor 52″. This single-action pistol uses a roller-locked design like the German MG42 belt-fed machinegun. It fires a hotter loading of the 7.62×25 Tokarev cartridge (1600fps!) from an 8-round single-stack magazine. 200,000 were made between 1952 and 1954, to replace the Vz. 50 as the Czech military sidearm. Since the Vz. 50 fired the .32acp cartridge, it was a considerable upgrade in firepower. The CZ52 was phased out in the mid-1990s.

Today’s morsel of shooty goodness from behind the Iron Curtain: the TT-33 pistol. The acronym stands for Tula Tokarev (Tula being the arsenal where it was first made, Tokarev being the designer who created it), with 33 representing the year it was adopted, 1933).

Originally named the TT-30, it was later slightly modified (minor changes to the barrel, disconnector, trigger and frame were implemented, such as omission of the removable backstrap and changes to the full-circumference locking lugs) and renamed TT-33.